


Episode 11: Omaha, Nebraska

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Series: The Canyon's Arms Are All We Know [11]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 04:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19166116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: "I'm not leaving here without that necktie."Also, spot the crossover cameo. ;)





	Episode 11: Omaha, Nebraska

Astra, at present, couldn’t really run. 

Alex had an arm hooked underneath her shoulders and they were making a break for the back of the museum.There was no way that Astra’s beat-to-hell old truck could outrun a Kryptonian, but Alex’s bike?Maybe.Outside chance.

Alex had been pulling up along the ridge behind the museum when she saw Astra busting into it.She’d stopped there, watching for a moment out of sheer curiosity, and then saw the dark figure follow her in.“Shit Kara,” she’d muttered, “I could really use you right about now.”

She’d walked her bike down the hill to avoid making a racket and then slipped in behind them. She heard their entire exchange. Everything suddenly made a lot more sense about Astra’s secrecy, why she’d needed to live so completely off the grid, her fearful reaction when she’d heard Alex say she was in law enforcement.

But there would be time to parse that later.If they survived.

Astra’s weight was heavy against Alex’s side as she tried to drag them both back to the bike before the Kryptonian climbed out of the wreck.“Alex…” Astra was panting.

“You’re in worse shape than your truck,” Alex scolded, “don’t talk.”Astra was banged up, bleeding in several places, was breathing in short, strained breaths, and wasn’t doing great on the whole walking thing either.

Behind them came the screeching of metal, the roar of an engine exploding, and Alex glanced over her shoulder to see the Kryptonian punch his way out of the engine block in a cloud of black smoke and fire.She cursed.

“Hobble faster.”

Astra did her best, and Alex did her best to support her weight as best she could, but after a few seconds, she cussed under her breath.“Just get on my back!” she yelled. She slid in front of Astra and bent down.

Astra collapsed forward onto her, wrapped her arms and legs around her, and hung on.

It was better.Not by much.

As she ran with heavy steps, she heard a wrenching sound, the tearing of metal, and then heard Kryptonian grunt.She looked up and saw that he had picked up Astra’s truck, torn it separate from the trailer, had hurled it at them from where he stood, a good three hundred feet back, and it was now hurtling toward where they would be if Alex didn’t veer right immediately.

She lurched to the right, and the truck missed them.It bombed into the sidewalk directly in front of the museum, nose down, crushed into the cement.All the wooden boxes full of plants tumbled out of the back and spilled across the pavement. She heard Astra whimper. 

And then, in a burst of super-speed, a feat Alex had seen more than a few times, the Kryptonian was in front of them again.He stared at Alex for a moment, his lips curled with cold amusement. “Oh, you found a pet human. How touching.” He asked.“You shouldn’t have gotten involved in this, human.”

Alex crouched down, letting Astra slip back onto the ground. “Yeah,” she panted heavily, “you’d be surprised how often people say that to me.”She positioned herself in front of Astra’s injured body.

“All I want is her,” he said, pointing at Astra.

“Yeah,” Alex panted, “well, unfortunately for you, same here. So, if you want her, you gotta go through me.”

Did Alex have any idea what she was going to do? No. Was it all going to end here, in the parking lot of the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas?It was looking very likely.

“I happen to be law enforcement on this planet.”She figured it was worth a shot. “And this woman is in my custody. You are out of your jurisdiction, pal. You want her extradited, you gotta go through government channels. Sorry.”

“I don’t have time for that.” He started toward her.

She drew her Glock, which she’d had the good sense to pack despite J’onn’s protestations, and discharged it several times with loud banging sounds.It didn’t do much to the Kryptonian apart from seeming to mildly annoy him as the bullets bounced off of him and made little ricocheting sounds.

“Are you joking?” he demanded. 

He moved forward, wrapped a hand around the muzzle of her gun, and crushed it shut.

“That was my favorite gun!”

She heard the crunching of footsteps on glass behind them. _Please,_ she thought, _please let it be what I hope it is._

She emerged through the rubble of the museum facade, wearing, inexplicably, one of Evel Knievel’s famous outfits. The white one, with the stars across the chest and the blue cape. It was Kara.

“BOGGIS!” Kara yelled.

Alex looked at her.She could see the heat beginning to glow behind her sister’s eyes.All she could do now was hope to hell that whatever Clark’s training had been, that it had been enough.

The Kryptonian looked at her, disdainful, but also confused. “My name is not–”

But Kara began to walk slowly toward him. “Your tractor uprooted my tree,” she began.

Alex smiled to herself.

“Your posse hunted my family,” she went on.Her fists were balling up at her sides, and her eyes glowed brighter.

“What?” the Kryptonian demanded.

“Your gunmen kidnapped my nephew,” Kara continued, and now sparks were dancing along the rims of her eyelids.She moved forward with deadly slowness.

“I don’t know who you–”

But she wasn’t hearing him.She was doing the speech at the climax of _Fantastic Mr. Fox_ , and this Kryptonian was just going to have to listen to it.“Your rat insulted my wife!”

Alex was now grinning maniacally. 

“And you SHOT OFF MY TAIL!”she finished angrily.“I’m not leaving here WITHOUT THAT NECKTIE!”

“What?!?”

And then two beams of blazing red light poured forth from her eyes and bored into the bewildered Kryptonian’s chest, knocking him back and sending him halfway across the parking lot.She strode forward to where he stood and glared down at him.And then she reached down, took him by the collar, and stood him up again. 

“We don’t throw trucks at people. This is Earth, we’re NICE HERE!”

His eyes blazed and he tried to shoot red into hers, but she fired back and they stood there locked, their eyes both pouring fire at one another, streams of heat that met in a ball of sparking white light, until she struck him with a right cross to the jaw that sent him flying fifty feet, slamming into the side of Astra’s trailer, leaving a massive, man-shaped dent.She marched over to him again, grabbed him by the collar, and then launched herself into the air, dragging him along with her.

Alex watched, mouth hanging open, until Kara and the Kryptonian were a tiny dot in the sky, and then till she couldn’t see them at all.

She knelt down next to Astra, who was lying on the sidewalk. “Who was that?”

“Well, remember that sister I told you about?”

Sirens wailed in the middle-distance. Alex knew that they would be here soon and then she was going to have to explain something to somebody.Even her fake FBI credentials were probably not going to be enough.She got Astra gently to her feet, and they made their way to Alex’s bike.She felt Astra lean forward against her, arms around her waist, holding on with as much strength as she had.

They got the hell out of dodge.

 

 

*********

 

 

It was a half hour on the bike from Topeka to a quiet motel in Lawrence, Kansas.Alex called DEO Central.A bunker in Omaha that could send a chopper for them in couple of hours, provided Alex felt that she could keep Astra alive and safe until then.

Fortunately, Alex had a few work supplies in her bag.She gave Astra the rest of her bottle of bourbon, and stitched and splinted what she could. Astra tried her best to not wince too much as Alex swabbed and bandaged and cleaned her.The one arm was a mess.Alex cleaned all the wounds and bandaged them, and then splinted the whole thing in case it was broken, which seemed pretty likely.The head wound looked worse than it probably was, as areas near the eye tended to bleed a lot because the skin was thin with a lot of blood vessels near the surface.But the back of the head needed ice, and both eyes were starting to show black circles underneath them. 

Nevertheless, her vitals were strong.After Alex had done everything she could, Astra lay there looking up at her with exhausted gratitude. “Thank you.”

Alex smiled, and traced a finger down her cheek. “Don’t mention it.” She curled up next to Astra’s prone form on the slightly too-hard hotel mattress. She didn’t try to hold her, because God only knew what else might be broken that she couldn’t see. “So,” she sighed after a moment, “should we start from the beginning?”

Astra shook a little in a way that seemed like she would laugh if she had more strength. Her speech was a little sloppy from the bourbon. “I d’know how much you heard…”

“Well, I heard you were from Krypton.Heard you broke out of jail. What’d you do?”

Astra let out a long sigh.“You won’t like it.”

“Probably not, but try me.”

“It was politics. Krypton was in trouble… dying… nobody wanted to listen. The Council was… they were getting…the mining guild bought them, an’… nobody listened.So I…” She was reaching for words that the bourbon was making it harder to find. “…blowed up a building.”

“Rational.”

“Sssh,” Astra answered, “you think it’s crazy. But it was dying from the mining and nobody listened. We blowed up the building. I didn’t… there wasn’t supposed to be anybody inside. It was a festival night, there wasn’t supposed to be people, Alex.”

Alex sighed. She understood. She was trying to make a statement before it was too late. Apparently she had not succeeded. “How many people?”

“A lot,” Astra answered. “Not a lot,” she amended a moment later. “Well, it was kind of a lot. It was fifty. I killed more than fifty in wars, you know.”

“Wars? You were in the military?”

“I was a general…”Astra yawned. “I was very good at it, too. I blowed up much things on Daxam…and I killed a lot of Daxamites.It was war, y’know, that’s what… what we did.”

Alex stroked her arm where she could. “I understand.”

“So anyway, we tried to escape the prison.I was the only pod that didn’t get blowed out of the sky. I’m a better…” She seemed to be grasping again for a word that she couldn’t quite find. “I fly better than everyone else. So I crashed here, and blowed up the pod so nobody would find me.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Dunno … seven months?Maybe?There’s no seasons, I don’t know. The time got away. I was a … I washed dishes and slept in bus stations, and then I was a Mexican for a while. _No entiendes. Me gusta tequila. Revolución.”_ Alex gave her a puzzled smile, wondering what that meant.Astra’s voice had a little fondness to it now.

“But it’s very hard work, and the farms don’t treat them properly all the time, and it made me angry. So I got in trouble, and I left.” Having some experience with interpreting, Alex guessed she meant that she’d been a day laborer for a while and had a run-in with a boss over some bad treatment.

“Then I was a… I helped fix cars. And then I built the box farm…”She remembered, just at that moment, what had happened.“The farm… It took me months…”Alex felt her start to shake with quiet sobs. Now that the danger had passed, she was free to grieve.

Alex propped herself up on one elbow, wiped Astra’s tears, stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Astra. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

“But I had so little, and now it’s… lost.”

“You have me,” Alex whispered. “You’re okay. You have me.”

At this moment, Alex’s phone rang.She pulled it from her pocket.It was J’onn.She answered.“Hi, J’onn.”

“Agent Danvers,” he said sternly, “do you have any idea why your sister is here, dressed as Evel Knievel, dragging an unconscious Kryptonian?”

Alex chuckled. “Well, have you asked her?”

J’onn snorted. “You know what it’s like trying to get her to answer questions.”

Alex laughed. “Yeah, I do.It’s okay, J’onn, you just gotta speak her language. Listen, that guy’s bad news, you ought to lock him up before he wakes up.”

J’onn cleared his throat. “I see.”He was clearly waiting for an explanation.

She took a breath. “I ran into someone out here.I think she may have been the pilot of that bombed-out ET craft our guys found in Estancia about six or seven months ago.She was being pursued by a Kryptonian with a bit of a grudge. I went in to assist, things were going badly, and the next thing I knew, my sister had turned up.”

“Dressed like Evel Knievel.”

“Well, to be fair, we were at the Evel Knievel Museum when the fight broke out.”

J’onn sighed heavily.She could see in her mind that he was rubbing his temples with one hand. “So she’s wearing stolen property.”

Kara got on the phone, then. “Hi, Alex!” She sounded cheerful and excited.

“Hey kid,” Alex said, yawning. “Good job back there.”

“Thanks!”

“You stole an outfit though, sweetie.You gotta give it back.”

“The clothes went away,” Kara said.

Alex nodded.“Yeah, I guess if you were wearing normal clothes, they probably got shredded if you flew real fast.”

“Yeah. The clothes went away.”

“Okay, but we still gotta make sure we return that outfit. It’s not ours.”

“Okay,” Kara said with some disappointment.

“But listen,” Alex said gently, “you deserve a real super suit, okay? One just like Clark’s. I’m gonna talk to J’onn. We’re gonna get one made for you, okay?”

“Super suit!” she exclaimed. “Yes!” 

She heard J’onn in the background.“Super suit?”

“Yes!” Kara exclaimed.“Also, property damage.”

J’onn got back on the phone. “Property damage?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah, unfortunately the Evel Knievel Museum has seen better days.The borrowed suit is the least of its problems at the moment.I’ve already spoken with DEO Central, Omaha will be stepping in to deal with the aftermath.”

J’onn clucked his tongue. “You were supposed to be on vacation, Agent.”

“Are you kidding? I’m having the time of my life.”

She hung up.

 

 

*******

 

 

Alex had so much she wanted to tell Astra, but she was sleeping now, like she damn well should be after the beating she’d taken.

It felt good to be caring for Astra. It felt right. She knew how to do this, mend a body and sit in watch and protect them.She lay for a long time, looking at her bandaged, sleeping body, watching the rise and fall of her chest, feeling ever more that fate had had a hand in bringing them to each other. The radio show, and then the Kryptonian thing… It sounded from what Alex had heard of their conversation that Astra had been tortured in prison and gotten gene therapy to prevent her from developing powers. Alex thought about how to reverse that. She thought about the PTSD therapy that Astra was going to need. She thought about everything that Astra needed and all the ways that she, Alex, could bring her skills and training to bear to meet those needs.

She propped up on her elbow again, delicately lifted the hem of Astra’s shirt, and laid a soft kiss on her stomach.“I’m gonna take care of you,” she whispered.

Astra shifted in her sleep, but said nothing else.

Alex dozed until the chopper came.Three black-suited DEO medics came in with a pallet and expertly slid Astra onto it, and then loaded her and Alex onto the chopper. Astra was awake for most of this, but didn’t comment, probably because she didn’t feel much like yelling above the clamor of the blades.Alex sat next to her and held her hand all the way to Omaha.

 

 

*****

 

 

The Omaha “bunker” looked more like an industrial ag facility, complete with a herd of cows grazing outside.Alex was skeptical.The red-haired woman who greeted them gave her a wry smile.She wasn’t exactly in standard issue DEO blacks: she had the black polo that Alex often wore on the job, but she was in jeans and work boots. “Don’t be fooled, Agent. They only look like cows. They’re intergalactic police.” She winked.

Alex wasn’t sure to what extent the woman was yanking her chain. She put a hand out. “Alex Danvers.”

“Director Dana Scully.”She waved a hand around. “Welcome to DEO Central.Not as sexy as the desert bunker you folks have, but it’s got plenty of fresh air.”

They stepped back as two agents slid Astra’s pallet from the helicopter.

“So,” she said, sizing up Astra, “that’s our un-powered Kryptonian?”

Alex nodded. “I patched her up the best I could with some field supplies I had on my bike, but she needs proper medical attention. X-rays, CAT scans, ultrasound–”

“Don’t worry, she’s in good hands. We’ll do all the labs.”She stood with hands on hips.“So, do you need the guys to give you a lift back?”

Alex shook her head. “No, I’d like to stay with her, if you don’t mind.”

Scully lifted an eyebrow.“Suit yourself.Come on in, Agent Danvers.”

They carried Astra through the large pen of mooing intergalactic police and into a sprawling corrugated metal barn-like building.Alex did notice that the barn smelled suspiciously not barn-like.They piled into the grain elevator, and then the floor opened up, and they descended several levels down into the dirt. 

Alex didn’t bother to hide that she was impressed.“So is it all underground?”

“No, we’ve got labs up in the silo and some other facilities on the ground floor.Nobody bothers us. People just think we’re a farm.”

Astra was placed on a gurney and wheeled down a long, shiny hallway.“Alex, where are we?” she finally asked.

Alex touched her hand.“We’re at my job. Well, a different branch of my job. This isn’t where I work, but it’s the same organization.”

“So the bookkeepers are going to give me medical attention?” The ironic twist of her lips told Alex she was feeling a little better.

Alex smiled at her.“Yes, well, you’re not the only one with a little back story that needs to be cleared up. Soon, I promise.” 

A shrill gurgling sound erupted from the gurney underneath Astra. Alex frowned.

“My phone,”Astra explained.

Alex put a hand up to pause the gurney and reached into Astra’s back pocket.

Astra raised an eyebrow at her.“I guess that will have to do for intimacy today,” she sighed.

Alex smirked. She flipped the phone open.“Hello?”

“Um, hello,” a male voice said, “is this Astra?”

Alex tensed for a moment. She was pretty sure Astra had only given that phone number to Clementine and her.“Who’s this?” she demanded.

“Uh, well, I… my girlfriend gave me this number, she said that Astra left a message for me, that she was a distant relative of mine, and I… did I get the right number?”

Alex paused. Her eyes narrowed.That voice sounded awfully familiar.“Clark?”

An awkward pause ensued.“Alex?”

“What the hell are you doing calling Astra’s phone?”

“What are you doing answering it?”

Alex cleared her throat. She was very confused.

“You sounded really scary for a second there,” he chuckled, “I thought you were gonna kill me through the phone.”

Astra was now looking up at her, looking as confused as she felt.

“So,” she said after a deep breath, “why exactly are you calling her phone?”

“Well, she stopped into Lois’s bar, said she was a distant relative of mine, and normally you know Lois throws those type of people out on their butts, but she knew my Kryptonian name and all this stuff about my family… so Lois took her number.I had to go double check some of what she said on the computers up at the Fortress because I wasn’t sure I recognized her name, but she’s in there.So, it seemed legit.So I decided to call her and see what she wanted.”

Alex sighed.This was too much new information at once.“Have you talked to Kara?”

“No, I haven’t seen her.I’m in Metropolis today. Why?”

“Well, because she came and bailed me and Astra out of a tight spot.”

“Alright…”

“You can’t say anything to her until I figure out what the hell is going on here.”

“Alright…”Clark cleared his throat.“So, you never did explain to me what you were doing with her and why you answered her phone?”

Alex shook her head.“She’s in the DEO hospital right now, Clark.”

Astra tugged at Alex’s jacket.“Is that Kal-El?”

Alex nodded.

“Does he want to see me?”

Alex sighed. “Look,” she said, “your… um, how are you related exactly?”

Clark sighed. “She’s my… aunt? In-law?”

Alex snorted. “Okay. Well, your aunt-in-law would like to see you soon.Please do me a favor and go back to England and check on Kara. Make sure she gets home, gets out of that Evel Knievel outfit and see that it gets returned to the museum in Topeka. And then call me if you can, and I’ll let you know where we are and see about getting you to come over here.”

“Kara… Evel Knievel… what?”

“Just go.Get over to the house, make sure Eliza’s not freaking out, get Karahome from the DEO, just… take care of shit. I’m here with your aunt-in-law for now, okay?”

Clark cleared his throat.“Um, okay.You know, you still didn’t answer my–”

“Yeah, thanks, Clark. Good job, buddy. See you soon.”

The rest of the world may think of him as Superman, but to Alex, he was always just going to be Kara’s slightly hapless older cousin.The gurney resumed its trip down the hallway.

“What did he say?” Astra wanted to know, wide-eyed.

“He wants to come see you. As soon as he takes care of a few things, alright?”

She nodded, looking relieved but still anxious. And Alex was willing to bet she still hurt. She squeezed Astra’s hand as they walked down the brightly lit corridor.

“Wait… Alex …”

“Hm?”

“Did you say Kara?”

Alex looked down at her.Her cheeks were suddenly flushed. She frowned. “Yeah, why?”

“Kara… Zor-El?”

“Yeah…” Something was creeping over her, a feeling she couldn’t place. “My adopted sister.” _My sister … Clark’s cousin … Clark’s ‘aunt-in-law,’ whatever that means…_

“Kara is my niece.”Alex saw the hope, the shock, the emotions jostling for position in Astra’s face. “She’s alive?”

She was squeezing Alex’s hand tightly now.“Yeah,” Alex said, “she’s alive.”

“And so am I,” Astra sighed.

Then Astra's eyes closed.Her mind had decided that for the moment, it had finally had enough.

 


End file.
